Reforestation Could Help Reefs Avoid Disaster
A study done by the University of Queensland discovered that increasing reforestation efforts in coastal areas could considerably reduce the amount of sediment runoff reaching coral reefs and enhance their resilience.
The research project examined over 5,500 coastline coastal locations around the globe and discovered that almost 85 percent of them leached silt to coral reefs, making it the world’s second most important threat to reefs behind global warming.
Dr. Andrés Suárez-Castro of the College of Queensland’s Centre for Environment and Preservation Technology believes that addressing the issue of sediment runoff is critical if attempts to reduce human influence on reefs are to be sustainable.
More sedimentation might make aquatic environments more susceptible to heat stress, decreasing coral resilience to pressures resulting from climate change, noted Dr. Suárez-Castro.
Future efforts to preserve marine habitats and species are likely to be ineffective unless the connection between land and sea is recognized and dealt with independently.
Excess sediment runoff from land clearing and agrichemical pollution along coasts can both contribute to sediment migration to coastal seas.
One of the repercussions of sediment overflow on coral reefs, according to Dr. Suárez-Castro, is a dramatic fall in light degrees, which are essential for coral and seagrass growth and reproduction.
Dr. Suárez-Castro and his colleagues advise that governments devote resources to coastal land and forest restoration, which will help reduce the amount of sediment flow.
Reforestation is critical given that it maintains soil stability, which is important to decreasing erosion risk.” It also aids in the collection of more sediments and prevents them from entering aquatic systems, he stated.Upgrading a coral reef’s healing potential also necessitates increasing coral resilience by reducing sediment and air pollution.
If the management of land to reduce sediment runoff doesn’t become an international priority, it will be increasingly difficult, if not impossible, to protect aquatic ecosystems from climate change.
While the benefits of land restoration efforts were obvious, the experts cautioned that getting countries and governments to accept the reconstruction initiatives would be tough.
It feels good to see a number of nations with a high coral diversity committing vast areas to land restoration. But, the cost of reforestation, as well as political and societal restraints, may make meeting these lofty goals challenging, according to Dr. Suárez-Castro.
If a typical amount of 1000 hectares of woodland was restored each coastal basin, land-based sediments impacting reefs could be decreased by approximately 8.5 percent among 63,000 square miles of reefs.
Dr. Suárez-Castro and his colleagues hope that local governments will use their findings to identify areas where reforestation will have the greatest impact on the reef.
According to Dr. Suárez-Castro, their method can be updated using local data to discover optimal measures for preserving ‘win-wins’ for diverse biological communities across land and sea.
Several worldwide initiatives, such as the Paris Climate Agreement, are bringing forest rebuilding to the forefront of worldwide preservation discussions, and we hope that our research study will encourage more informed and educated debates regarding the significance of a more integrated land-sea a plan of action.
Originally published by the University of Queensland. Read the original article.
Reference: Andrés F. Suárez‐Castro, Hawthorne L. Beyer, Caitlin D. Kuempel, Simon Linke, Pasquale Borrelli, Ove Hoegh‐Guldberg. Global forest restoration opportunities to foster coral reef conservation. Global Change Biology, 2021; 27 (20): 5238 DOI: 10.1111/gcb.15811
